Timothy Treadwell: I've always wished I was gay, would have been a lot easier. You know, 's jt Bg! Bg! Bg! - gay guys, no problem. They go to rtrooms and tck stops and perform sex, 's like so easy for them and stuff.

Contents:

• PHYSIL, BEHAVRAL, AND PSYCHOLOGIL TRAS OF GAY MEN INTIFYG AS BEARS
• GAY BEARS

PHYSIL, BEHAVRAL, AND PSYCHOLOGIL TRAS OF GAY MEN INTIFYG AS BEARS

Published fal eded form as:PMCID: PMC5442596NIHMSID: NIHMS860386AbstractThe Bear muny exists as a subculture reactn to the larger gay muny. It rejects the normative ialized male bety revered by mastream gay men.

GAY BEARS

While qualative data document such self-intifiers as mascule-actg gay men who weigh more and have more body hair, there has to date been no quantative analysis of this group’s characteristics.

In rponse, we nducted two large-sle studi of gay men intifyg as Bears (n = 469) to survey their self-reported physil, behavral, and psychologil tras. Our studi dited that Bears were more likely to be hairier, heavier, and shorter than mastream gay men.